Majority ‘disagree’ firing athletes

Chicago cops kneel in protest stance

NEW YORK, Sept 27, (Agencies): A majority of Americans disagree with President Donald Trump’s assertion that football players should be fired for kneeling during the national anthem, even though most say they would personally stand during the song, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday.

The Sept. 25-26 poll found that 57 percent of adults do not think the National Football League should fire players who kneel. This included 61 percent of NFL fans who watch at least a few games per season.

The results were split along party lines, however, as 82 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Republicans disagreed with the president’s comments about firing football players.

Trump waded into the issue last week at a political rally when he bemoaned what he saw as a decline in the sport. Among other things, Trump criticized players who want to draw attention to what they believe is social and racial injustice by refusing to stand during the anthem.

Meanwhile, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday denounced football players who have protested racism by kneeling or locking arms during the playing of the national anthem before games, saying that even though their speech is protected, they should be condemned for showing disrespect to the country.

Speaking to an audience at Georgetown Law School, Sessions said athletes who chose to protest during the national anthem were making a “big mistake” with an action that “weakens the commitment we have to this nation.”

In related news, Chicago police were thrust Tuesday into a political debate over kneeling during the US national anthem, after a photo of two officers in the protest pose appeared on social media.

The photo was posted Sunday by anti-violence activist Aleta Clark on her Instagram account. By Tuesday it had graced the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper and earned the officers a reprimand.

The kneeling pose during the national anthem is a symbolic protest over racial injustice popularized by American football player Colin Kaepernick.

It has become the object of a public feud between President Donald Trump and the National Football League (NFL).

The Instagram photo showed Clark posing with two uniformed Chicago police officers kneeling with one hand raised in a fist. Clark told AFP she had gone to two police stations to ask officers to pose for the photo.

“I wanted to see if there were officers that were in agreement that racism was wrong and that police brutality was also wrong,” Clark said.